Lightroom CC: Ability to print

We really need a "convenient" way to print. Some of us still like to create prints to hang on a wall. While I know the printing is still available in "classic", to be able to move forward with Adode, an integrated print function needs to be added to Lightroom CC.

Unbelievable. An image-editing program, from ADOBE, for cryin' out loud, and no PRINT functionality? Please add soon... my subscription expires in November, and won't be renewed for a program lacking such a fundamental feature as PRINTING.

Printing is a pretty big miss for me because the alternative of saving a JPEG and printing it with an OS-level utility not only adds multiple steps, and JPEGs to clean up after the fact, but, also because I switch back and forth between Windows and Mac. So it requires different workflows depending on which computer I'm working from. Part of the appeal of CC is having a unified workflow across multiple workstations.

because, apparently, I'm an idiot: I migrated and upgraded to LRCC. And now I cannot print an image. I know that maybe most people are only interested in online images, but I NEED TO PRINT - it's why I photograph!

WTF ADOBE - I give you $$$ every month and now I get nothing but edit and STORAGE! I don't want a workaround! I want a PRINT FEATURE - Abobe has definitely gone backwards. GRRRRR

For me it’s a matter of which comes first as I solely work in iOS and LR is the only logical DAM. AP may change that, I would migrate instantly if they beat Adobe to the punch because all their products are first class... but with PS CC coming out I would drop Aff Photo and go with a seamless integration workflow in adobe.

Does anyone know how to get a lossless compression file out of LR CC, that also contains my edits?It's for the purpose of printing, of course, that I wish to send the highest resolution file to a pro printing service, but I can get only jpegs and DNGs + settings, which I am really not sure how they're going to be processed. Thanks!

It isn't just lossless images which is difficult, sometimes one needs to export to a particular size or quality. It seems really sad that Lightroom CC should be hampered by a very few real 'gotchas' (I really like the book module in Classic for instance).

What I don't understand is why Adobe is silent about this - IMHO they should either:

1. Say that they aren't going to put a print / export module in because it's designed that way and explain their logic

2. Say that they are going to put these features in (even if it's not imminent).

Not until I received my Canon Pro-100 printer did I even realize that Lightroom CC doesn't have a print module! I thought certainly I'm overlooking it - nope. I'm at a loss for words and beyond frustrated, having recently gone "all in" with Lightroom CC.

What are you all using as a work-around? I'm on a Mac and a total newb to printing.

Thanks Jonathan. Unfortunately I just have a solo Lightroom CC subscription and don't have access to Classic or Photoshop. Not interested in buying-up just to gain a printing feature that should be included in CC in the first place. Ugh. Guess I need to be looking at 3rd party software but have no idea where to go. Perhaps my Canon driver disk has some bloat software I could use...

Only problem with "Preview" is the inability to input DPI specs and/or ICC profiles (am I missing something?). Looks like I'll be checking out the Photography Plan for another $10/month or some 3rd party print utility.

I can see that - might be worth checking out whether they have any deals right now? When I checked out adding 1Tb cloud storage I got the whole lot for £12 per month (CC,Classic,Photoshop,1Tb storage) not such a bad deal I reckon

After getting to know it I very much like the print functionality in Lightroom Classic. I get just the margins and photo size I want. The sharpening and contrast settings are nice to let me tweak a single print. It is also not overly complex.

When this finally comes to Lightroom CC, I hope you keep and improve on the good bits.

Being able to print with the same level of control from the iOS app would be incredible. Not sure what is possible, but something like that would be a game changer. :)

I liked printing in LR Classic also. I don’t really want LR CC. I’d happily buy Classic and just pay an upgrade fee for new versions the way it used to be. My choice now is to double my monthly subscription so I can print, or go to open source solutions such as Rawtherapee to edit my Raw files connected to GIMP for printing.

Please add printing to Lightroom CC. You have convinced me that Lightroom CC is the way to go for my editing and storage needs, yet it lacks the basic function of producing a picture on paper. I need to be able to tweak the image just before printing and as I print if changes are needed, and I need to be in the editing program (Lightroom CC) to do so. It appears from this string that this request has been made repeatedly for 2 years with no response from Adobe. Not very responsive to customers.

With February, 2019 comes another update, and still no print functionality in Lightroom CC. Does anyone from Adobe read these forums? Is there EVER a plan to implement a print dialog from within the app, or are we all wasting our time leaving comments here?

Seems to be a waste of time. I'm learning how to print with GIMP an open-source program. It has a pretty steep learning curve but is full-featured. If I succeed there, then I will take a look at RawTherapee (which can feed GIMP) and regretfully cut the ties to LR. I have been a huge fan of LR for years, and always bought the updates to LR Classic when they came out, but won't double the monthly cost just so I can print.

Yes Adobe reads everything. It is frustrating when the one feature you really want seems to continue to be bypassed. It's just a very young app and there's a lot of features to add, so tough decisions have to be made.

Printing is a pretty fundamental ability for a photograph don't you think Victoria? I'm managing okay by (against Adobe Recommendations) running CC and Classic side by side, both syncing, it mean I get two backups locally, but it also means that I can print as normal and create wedding books whilst using CC for triage and editing.

The fact that printing exists in Classic seems to belie any claim that adding it to CC is a big job. How difficult could it be to adapt existing technology to a sister program? Without an explanation Adobe appears to be intentionally snubbing it’s customer base, but to what end?

> Printing is a pretty fundamental ability for a photograph don't you think Victoria?

Adobe will have some fairly significant stats on this, which will be a big factor in the decisions they've made so far. The main target audience for CC is not the same as the target audience for Classic, at least at this point of time.

Personally I can't remember the last time I printed a photo locally, since local or online labs do a good and economical job without needing to maintain a photo quality printer. If I did need to, I'd just send it to Photoshop, or save as Original+Settings to import into a temporary Classic catalog.

Don't get me wrong, I'd be pleased to see it added. But I'd put things like a Trash facility, better export options and saved searches ahead of it on my own priority list. Everyone's workflow is different, so your priorities may be different.

>Everyone's workflow is different, so your priorities may be differentYes indeed - tell me about it! as a camera tester and a software developer I'm only too aware of this (and like Radu I have no illusions about the complications of this). On the other hand I would have thought that most photographers would need one of the features missing from CC.

My own conclusion is that despite recommendations it's quite okay to run both applications (CC and Classic) parallel as long as you really understand what they're doing. That means that the improved filtering / book module / printing / exporting and other features not yet in CC can be used when needed.

@Jonathan: So you don't have any "syncing" issues between CC and Classic? I thought Classic can only handle 20GB of online collections. How does Classic handle it, if I create an Album in CC, will it automatically be an online collection in Classic?

Ontopic: I thought Adobe would be faster with delivering left out features like printing and exporting. Now I'm not angry about Adobe not adding that basic functions - I knew that I don't get printing or exporting at the time I opted for the CC only subscription. I just hoped to get it soon. I guess most CC users who complain about missing features like printing are in the same boat now - nobody ever gave word THAT or WHEN those features will be added. If one is angry, it can only be because of disappointment.

hi ChristianI pay for the Photographer's thingy, with 1Tb of online storage (I think it's 12.50GBP a month). Yes - if you create a collection in CC it'll appear in Classic (but not the containers). it seems to work pretty well - both programs download source files, but perhaps that isn't a bad thing. . . and of course you then have all the background advantages of Classic, with the foreground advantages of CC

With all due respect to Victoria ("Personally I can't remember the last time I printed a photo locally, since local or online labs do a good and economical job without needing to maintain a photo quality printer"), I maintain a Canon Pro-100 printer specifically so that I do not have to deal with a third party to produce prints.

Having to hop back-and-forth between two apps to get the functionality of one well-designed app seems kludgy at best. One would expect a company with the resources of Adobe to be able to share code libraries between apps, especially when those apps share a fundamental purpose (managing a library of image files).

Perhaps a more honest approach would have been for Adobe to christen the new Lightroom CC as "Lightroom Elements." That way, nobody expects full features.

In hindsight... that's unfair to Photoshop Elements. It has built-in print functionality.

Hi JimActually, whilst I agree that Victoria's 'last time I printed a photo' is a bit glib - CC is a 'built from ground up' application, and sharing libraries would be a kludge at best. In the end this will be good for all of us, the pain is now.

One of the main reasons I moved to CC was because of the processor power needed by CC (so so much less than classic). Processing images on my iPad Pro I can work for 8 hours with CC (on a plane for instance), whereas with classic on a MacBook Pro one is lucky to get an hour.

I'm sure that CC is the early stages of our future, but certainly I can't be doing with the missing stuff (exif searching / printing / book module / etc.) but it seems that one can reasonably successfully run Classic as a backup for what's missing in CC (even if Adobe don't recommend it).

John I hear you. But why would Adobe release something less featured than what the "old" version delivered. I won't even go into the fact that the basic 20G hardly holds the code for the basic photo subscription. I have about 10 pics synched and I get the "almost full" warning. Indicating I get to pay even more for online storage to make CC work.Not buying any of it yet.

Hi Mitch, because duplicating all the old functionality is a huge job (and some of it shouldn't be duplicated). We are going through the same issues in our company with a new cloud based version - simply duplicating what you had before is definitely not the right answer, making the important things work better is what is important (and I think Adobe are doing this with CC).

You can't 'finish' it without feedback, and you can't get the feedback without launching it.

Sure, you have to pay for more cloud storage, but the Adobe storage is not expensive compared to other applications, and it works very well.

Apologies if you found that comment to be glib, but I meant it entirely sincerely. A little background - I maintained a collection of local printers in a working studio environment 15-20 years ago, but moved to sending the files to pro labs. I'm no longer working in that environment, but still send photos offsite because for MY workflow, it's simpler.

Since you have a lovely printer like that, I completely understand why you'd be frustrated. The request has my vote, even though I wouldn't need it myself.

> It seems that CC was designed for tablets and phones.

Yes, that group of mobile photographers is the initial target audience, at least at this stage of development. And that target audience has less of a need for local printing compared to Classic's target audience. That may change in time, as it grows up, but right now this is not a replacement for Classic, and nor is it meant to be.

> Perhaps a more honest approach would have been for Adobe to christen the new Lightroom CC as "Lightroom Elements." That way, nobody expects full features.

Naming it Elements would limit its potential. It is still a baby at the moment, no question, but it'll grow up in time.

You sound like you'd be better sticking with Classic, at least for now Mitch & Jim.

I work from several locations, so CC and universal access is very attractive as it solves my issue about how to see and work on photos in each place. But I still need to print, both for display and also for gifts and to enclose in notes. It would be helpful to know if printing in CC is “never” or “10 months out” or whatever so I can decide whether to invest my time in it. Perhaps you could share that with us.

I'm afraid I can't give a timescale because Adobe doesn't preannounce their plans. I sincerely doubt the answer is never, but there's a lot of juggling priorities at this stage as it's still so very young.

Like you, the universal access is a big benefit in my workflow, so if I needed to print locally, I'd edit in CC as normal, and then I'd save the edited photo and use any version of Lightroom (even an old perpetual license) or Photoshop to print, and then throw away the exported files. Whether that would work in your workflow, only you can tell.

Victoria- Thanks for your thoughtful reply. I appreciate that you took the time to understand our position. So here is an interesting fact. When I run CC on my Samsung tablet the share command offers 39 different sources I can share to. (onedrive, facebook, outlook, Kindle to name a few. Believe it or not it also lets me share to a printer. It appears the ability exists. The PC version of CC will only allow shares to Adobe or the local PC. Why are these programs so different on each platform? (a rhetorical question) It seem pretty obvious that CC is not meant for the PC

We just want a simple print function but a weird export that ask us to find the file and to open it in an another soft then print it (Damn we are not all photographer but technical people and need simple and fast mobile solution).

This is unfair from adobe to let us pay and suffer so much restriction thanks to "baby" software.

(I've renew my subscription but really I'm fade up to read this again and again)

Yes, as you note, you can share to printers on mobile. That's the operating system doing that.

> It seem pretty obvious that CC is not meant for the PC

The desktop versions are much younger, whereas the mobile apps have been available for years. Desktop also has some features that mobile doesn't have yet, and vice versa. The long term aim is feature parity, but we're a way off from that yet.

I can’t believe at all it is not possible to use the layer and or an api apple offer to print something. No sorry i can’t believe it. It is possible to print with every computer since probably the first computer exists and now with this kind of software it takes year to develop something to print?Seriously?And for example speak about iOS capability. Apple offer iCloud sync capabilities. Why not use iCloud sync capabilities to sync watermark setting. Why? Why do I need to parameters on my Mac., on my iPhone, on my iPad separately? Why?Because as simple it is, it is not on top priority of adobe developers. Just crasy but it is as it. Adobe knows better than we what we need. For example Adobe decide it is not possible to find a photo with its name. Why ? Is it so hard to use offline search or string text search? It is simple but adobe décided again we do not need this feature. Such a basic feature. Resulting no possibility to search a photo when offline.

If everything was running through a single company's operating systems (e.g. Apple macOS/iOS), then yes, that would be a lot simpler. But Adobe doesn't just live in an Apple world. What happens on the macOS desktop needs to work on Windows version too, so it's not as simple as using the built-in API's.

> Because as simple it is, it is not on top priority of adobe developers.

And yes, prioritization is the crux of the matter. Like everything in life, there are limited resources, and they're trying to balance the needs of a wide range of customers. Of course that doesn't make it any less frustrating when that's the missing feature is the one you need.

You're right, Adobe does not live in apple centric system. But because Adobe offer a centric cloud solution (20Gb, 100Gb or 1Tb) available across Mac, iPhone, Windows, Adroid and Web, why not use a tiny string to synchronise through adobe's cloud (instead of iCloud) for this kind of data. (I don't know if windows and android manage watermarks in fact)Anyway for a cloud centric solution the way Adobe offer with CC, everything this way should be possible or at least on top priorities.

But once again, I'm okay with you, ressources are not unlimited. Nevelseles, as a simple customer, we sometimes just asking if those ressources are efficiently used or to stay positive, we are wondering about what's in the pipe. Thats the big question in fact.

But finally and it is the more important, we are hopping those limitation are not just a case study of segmentation (marketing) to catch some news customers (with CC) and not allow existing customer (from classic) to switch from classic to CC.